Robot Sanatorium Re-Do

Written 29 August, 2011

Robot Sanatorium Re-Do

Because of the large scale of the robot sanatorium on Whimsy Kaboom, it was necessary to choose from a limited number of megaprims or use multiple 10-meter prims to span distances. The ramps, for instance, required two prims for the floors and two for each side for each span. The floor was made of 10x and 20x prims; because parts of the floor are solid and parts are steel mesh, it wasn't possible to use a single megaprim. Walls required multiple prims.

I set out to save as many prims as possible by stretching prims, replacing two or three, or in some cases as many as six, with a single prim. In the end, I saved about 140 prims at the sanatorium alone.

Because of its patchwork nature the floor was a challenge, but I saved prims there, too.

 Below the fold you'll find some screen shots of the process.

Here's a ramp. Because it spanned a distance greater than ten meters, it requires two prims. Ramps at upper elevations have sides, and so required six prims.

 Here you can see the two prims for the ramp:

This is the prim I'm going to remove:

In the Edit menu I checked Edit Linked Parts, selected the highlighted prim, unlinked it, and deleted it. See, it's gone.

 Still in Edit Linked Parts, I selected the lower section of ramp and stretched it until the gap was closed. By checking Stretch Textures BEFORE I elongated the prim I didn't have to rescale the texture after stetching.

To avoid prim flicker I would zoom my camera so I could see the joint clearly and close up. I didn't want any unsightly gaps or prim flicker.

Here's a gap I flubbed on the first pass. I noticed it almost immediately and fixed the problem.

Here are three prims in the floor I was able to work with. I eliminated two and stetched the third to cover the distance:

Here I've raised the new single piece of flooring so it can be seen clearly:

I was surprised to discover so many prims could be saved at the robot sanatorium and equally surprised to find so few could be saved elsewhere. 150 additional prims on Kaboom leaves 400 free, giving us some breathing room for who knows-- maybe another ridiculous feature.